One Hell of a Babysitter
by Arctic Banana
Summary: Mephisto foists the responsibility of looking after his spawn onto his unwilling brother, Baal. If Baal had a better little brother, he might actually have some decent help. Unfortunately his little brother happens to be Diablo...


_I actually wrote this four years ago. I'm a huge critic of my own work and wasn't sure if I was happy enough with it to post it and I've been going back and editing it a few times over the years since. I figured I'm just going to post it to get it out of the way because if I'm not completely happy with it now, I'll likely never be completely happy with it and might as well share what I've got._

_I like to think that Diablo likes to troll his brothers during downtime, because he's a little brother and that's what little brothers do best. The idea of Baal acting like a diva when he's upset also amuses me more than it should._

_(Fic is rated M due to a graphic description of Duriel dissecting something.)_

* * *

It was as quiet a day in Hell as you could possibly get with the constant sounds of the screaming dead and suffering as a daily, distant ambiance. Due to the constant warring and plotting against Heaven, it wasn't often that anyone would have a chance to relax, much less a Prime Evil, which is likely why Diablo had swiftly capitalized on the downtime to take a nap atop a pleasantly magma heated rock beside a glowing lava pool. As the hours waned on, his nap eventually turned into a lengthy sleep when he found himself to be so comfortable that he didn't want to get up again. Soon he found himself waking up and wondering what day it was on a near-regular basis.

"What are you people doing?!" Baal's angry shouting disturbed whatever peace Diablo might have still had. "There's no time for lazing about! Don't you all know we have work to do?! Tyrael is preparing for something and we need to be ready!"

Diablo lifted his head from his forearms and stared directly at him, obviously too comfortable to give a shit about any of his brother's plans right now. He huffed, blowing hot air against the surface of the rock and sending dust particles flying.

"I mean really! Duriel keeps trying to eat Belial! There are siege weapons that need to be built and prepared! And someone tell Azmodan that his sloth demons are laying all over the floor again!" Baal gave up on trying to step around them and just cut a path right across them. They barely even seemed to notice that they were being stepped on, almost as though they had fused to the floors of Hell itself on a metaphysical level.

"Oh my," Diablo replied, "that does sound urgent. Someone should get on that right away." He stared at his older brother for a good ten seconds before flopping back down on top of his rock and going back to ignoring him.

"I'm serious! Do you want to be unprepared?"

"Hmm...honestly, don't really care right now." Diablo rolled onto his back and had his feet and tail tucked up in the air like a playful dog.

"At least I'm actually doing something with my time instead of laying around, giving Azmodan a run for his money in the laziness department!"

"Huh," Diablo interrupted him. He appeared to be staring straight past him. "Mephisto is coming this way. I wonder what the Here he could need."

Baal looked over his shoulder and sure enough, there was Mephisto, right behind and hovering over him. "Hello, little brother," Mephisto said with a faux-pleasant smile. "You're watching my kids today," he informed him without giving him any chance to protest.

"What?" Baal growled back. "Why?"

"Because they're annoying little shitheads and I don't feel like watching them myself, and you're my little brother, so you do as I say," he replied before dumping them both on top of a sloth demon laying on the ground in front of him. "I'll come back later to pick them up and will judge your progress according to how many limbs they still have left."

"How much later?"

"I don't know. Whenever I feel like coming back for them. My part in their existence is already completed, I don't really see why I should have to watch them now, too."

Baal motioned behind him where Diablo was currently sprawled across the rock like a sunbathing dragon. He'd since rolled over onto his stomach, his limbs and tail dangling down the sides of the rock. "Why not make him do it?"

"Because he's clearly busy and I do not wish to disturb him." Before rushing off, he got up close in Baal's face and said threateningly, "And you better keep an eye on them, because if you lose Lucion, I will be very displeased with you."

"What about Lilith?"

"Who?"

"...your daughter?"

"Oh yeah...I have a daughter too...I guess you shouldn't lose Lilith either." Mephisto turned his head to the two toddlers, who were both standing at attention and watching him like prey would observe a predator. "I'll be back to pick you both up later, just as soon as I'm done collecting my Father of the Year award. Stay with your uncle!" he ordered them, and like that he was off.

One of Baal's eyes twitched as he thought of all of the many things he'd rather do than babysit his brother's sex trophies. He looked at the two toddlers, who now had their attention focused on him, and tried to feign a smile.

"Who's your favorite uncle?" he asked them.

"Diablo!" they both shouted before scurrying towards the rock and scrambling to climb up on top of him. Diablo laughed at his brother's rage while the two curled up next to each other within the coils of his tail.

"Why am _I_ watching them then, if they like _you_ more?" Baal grumbled.

"Because Mephisto has a sense of humor," Diablo replied. He smiled at the two toddlers pushing and shoving each other to get comfortable in the leathery confines of his tail and asked them, "Do you two want to hear a joke?"

"Oh no..." Baal whimpered.

"Yeah!" both of them predictably replied.

"What do you call an agreeable angel?" They both stared at him, their tiny and undeveloped minds incapable of coming up with an answer that made sense to them. "A dead one!"

The second the punchline clicked, they both started laughing. "Hey Uncle Baal, did you hear it?" Lucion asked. "He said, 'a dead one'!"

"Yes, I heard it," Baal grumbled, "and it was just as hilarious the first 74 times he's told it." He knew he'd probably hear it another 74 times before the day's end as they would probably repeat it ad infinitum as children were wont to do when something amused them, which was probably Diablo's insidious plan in the first place.

"You're welcome," Diablo smiled at him.

"I have things to do, I can't be watching these brats!"

"Watch what you say in front of them," Diablo warned, "they might repeat it to their father."

"I don't care, he's called them both worse!" Baal pointed out. "And sometimes he forgets Lilith even exists!"

"Be quiet now, they're asleep." Diablo tucked them both under his tail just as Lucion rolled over and hugged his sister in his sleep.

Baal marveled at how quickly they'd fallen asleep, but he wasn't going to complain. He still had things to do after all. "Praise Tathamet...maybe they'll stay that way so I can get something done," he said to no one in particular.

Diablo smirked as he laid back down on his rock. _It's almost like you have no idea how kids work__,_ he thought to himself.

* * *

Hours came and went. Baal checked on Diablo and the kids periodically and wasn't the least bit surprised to see that his brother was still asleep with the two wrapped up in his tail. It was about half a day before there was any noticeable stirring at all from atop the rock.

"Baal, where are the kids?" Diablo asked sleepily.

"What do you mean, 'where are the kids'?" Baal asked. He looked over towards his brother, and sure enough, Diablo's tail was now draped over the side of the rock instead of cradling a pair of sleeping toddlers. _"You lost them?!"_

"_I_ lost them? It wasn't my job to watch them in the first place. Mephisto asked you to do it," Diablo pointed out. "I'm just taking a nap."

"This is your idea of a nap? You've been on that rock for days! I had to poke you with a stick a few times to make sure you weren't dead!"

"The longer you stand there bitching at me, the more lost the kids are going to be," Diablo replied calmly. He rolled over onto his side so that his back was now facing Baal, a sure sign that he didn't want to continue the conversation further. "Better hurry, though. If they're still missing by the time Mephisto gets back, he's going to be pissed. If I'm lucky, maybe he'll even flay you alive for it!"

Baal growled at his younger brother's unhelpfulness and looked around for any clues as to where they could have gone. He found multiple tiny footprints in the soot and ash leading away from where Diablo lay "napping" for about a Hell's month now.

"Great, they could be anywhere by now," he mumbled to himself.

He suddenly began thinking of the many things they could have gotten themselves into. They might have been eaten by scavengers. Maybe they fell into some hot tar and couldn't get out. Or perhaps Azmodan rolled over and sat on them. He began mentally preparing the speech he would have to give Mephisto if something were to have happened to them, featuring any of these possible scenarios;_ "So yeah, you remember those kids you had just about a few hours ago? We dropped Azmodan's fat ass on them. They're fine, they're just a little flatter than you remember and kind of stuck under there for the time being. I hope that's okay with you."_

"Those runts had better not be getting into trouble," he thought as he followed the footprints.

* * *

Andariel relished in the distant screaming as she leaned against her brother's side. Duriel was busy biting down on something that was still squirming in a vain effort to escape. He shook it in his teeth violently until it stopped moving, spraying the surrounding area with a large amount of blood, and tossed the body into the air so he could catch it in his teeth again.

"Stop playing with your food," Andariel absentmindedly scolded him.

Duriel ignored her and dropped it to the floor before pushing a loose eyeball back and forth between his claws like a toy. He looked up just long enough to see they had a visitor. "Are you looking for something, Baal?" he asked as he observed the Prime Evil poking around the sulfurous rocks and craters.

Baal noticed the limp body that Duriel was now disemboweling with the end of a claw and looked at it closer. He was relieved to find that it was a lesser demon rather than one of his brother's offspring.

"I'm looking for some missing children," he explained when he didn't find what he was looking for in the area. Duriel suddenly lost interest in pulling strings of intestines from the corpse and looked at him excitedly. "No Duriel, you can't eat them, they're Mephisto's kids!" He looked disappointed and started skinning the carcass for no reason other than he felt like it.

Andariel stretched her legs out and leaned back against her brother. "We certainly haven't seen them all day, have we Duriel?"

"Nope," Duriel agreed. "I would have remembered eating them if we did." Finally he grabbed the carcass in his mouth again and swallowed it in a single bite. The intestines that he had been pulling out got caught in his teeth and dangled limply from the side of his mouth. "It's always the babies that scream the loudest."

"I love that sound," Andariel purred.

"Me too," her brother agreed.

"If you see them and eat them, keep in mind that Mephisto will be really displeased with you!" Baal pointed out.

"Any more displeased than he would be with you for losing them in the first place?" Andariel retorted with a smile. "Maybe you should find them instead of scolding my brother for potentially culling unattended toddlers."

Baal didn't like that smug smile on her face. He probably would have smacked her upside the head for her tone if it weren't for the fact that Duriel was right there, and he had a tendency to be violently protective of his sister. He was sure he could take him, but fighting Duriel to the death wasn't really how he planned on spending the rest of his day either. Instead he glared at her as he moved on. Duriel seemed suspicious of his intent and glared back until he determined Baal to be a safe enough distance from his sister for him to lose interest.

The footprints seemed to have stopped in an indeterminate direction. Baal began to come up with new scenarios involving everything from them being carried off by moloks to Duriel having lied about eating them. He wondered if he would really do it. He certainly knew what Mephisto's kids looked and smelled like and couldn't use "I didn't know it was them" as an excuse, so the only way Baal could conceive that he'd actually do it is if he thought he wouldn't get caught.

Baal didn't pay much attention to the direction he was wandering around in, so he was rather surprised when he looked up and saw Diablo, still laying on his rock, right in front of him. The Lord of Terror flicked aside a pebble with the tip of his tail and looked smug, fully aware that Baal hadn't yet found them.

"You're still looking for those kids? I would have sniffed them out by now," Diablo stated, still with that same smug smile. No wonder he didn't like the look on Andariel's face. It reminded Baal so much of the one on his brother's.

"Says the one who's been on the same damn rock for so long that he's practically become an algae," Baal growled at him.

"I'll have you know I did in fact leave this rock while you were away," Diablo replied. "In fact, I did it to help you. I went to see Azmodan, and he's ordered part of his army to help you search for them."

"Azmodan?" Baal said with surprise. "You mean Lard Butt the Useless actually agreed to be helpful for a change?"

"Yes..." Diablo snickered. "Helpful. That's certainly what his intentions were."

_5 seconds later..._

"HE SENT THE SLOTH DEMONS TO HELP?!"

"His exact words were 'It's not like they're doing anything useful right now anyway'."

The demons hadn't even managed to completely comb one small area in the last hour or so that they had been searching. Many of them had already fallen asleep and one of them fell three feet off a ledge and then never bothered to try and get back up again. Baal watched one slowly creep toward him and lift a tiny rock that was too impossibly small to ever hide a growing child, let alone two.

"Don't worry big brother, the sloth demons will find them in the next six millennia or so," Diablo said with faux reassurance. "Look, that one might be onto the trail already!" They watched 'that one' stare straight ahead for what seemed like ages before falling over in place.

"Mephisto is going to kill me!" Baal groaned.

Diablo's tail draped around him and gave his brother's shoulder a mild squeeze. "Don't say that, he's your brother. You know it's not true," he replied. "He'll probably just torture you for a few thousand years instead."

"Thank you, that's very reassuring..." Baal grumbled.

* * *

Andariel was by herself when Baal and Diablo crossed her lounging against a rock formation. "Where's your brother?" Baal asked with concern at their sudden separation.

"What, you don't think Duriel and I are capable of doing things on our own once in a while?" she asked sarcastically. "We aren't attached to each other. If he wants to go off and do things on his own once in a while, that's his right."

"Yes, but why did he go off on his own?" Baal asked suspiciously. "It certainly wasn't because he's aware of two missing toddlers, was it?"

"I don't know," she shrugged unhelpfully. "He has a mind of his own and sometimes he'd rather be alone. I'm not going to chain him to the floor just because he's my brother."

"Why not? Mephisto does that to us!" Baal pointed out.

"Because I actually have respect for Duriel and acknowledge him as a separate entity from myself?"

"Mephisto has respect for us!" Baal protested.

"He calls you both 'Hey You' and 'No, The Other One'," she replied dryly.

"Well he rules all of Hell, I'm sure he has a lot of names to remember," Baal replied.

"He has to remember so many names that he can't even remember the names of his own brothers?"

Baal felt a nudge in his side. "Might I remind you that your niece and nephew are both still missing?" Diablo pointed out.

"Shit! I gotta go before your brother finds them!" Baal shouted before charging off. Diablo and Andariel both shared a look and waited. A few moments later, Baal returned, looking defeated. "Can you at least show me which direction Duriel went?" he mumbled.

"Right this way," she replied before leading them away. Baal stomped along behind her in an angry sort of way while Diablo slowly sauntered off behind him in a clearly less than urgent manner.

* * *

Baal finally found Duriel down by the acid pits. He lay half on a rock, half soaking inside the pool of glowing acid, not even flinching as it slowly ate away at his body. Scavengers and pit beasts alike were giving him a wide berth in fear that he might snatch them should they wander too close.

Sitting beside him with one of his many centipede-like legs draped around her, effectively pinning her to his body, was Lilith, who was playing with a crushed skull. Duriel had one of his claws wrapped around Lucion and was whispering something in his ear. Neither of the kids seemed afraid of him in spite of his reputation for eating unattended children, and neither of them seemed to realize that he had both of them trapped, should they suddenly desire to run.

"Oh look, your uncles are here," Duriel smiled slyly. He removed his claw from behind Lucion's back and released Lilith before smiling at Baal, as though saying, _I could have done it, you know._

"See? He found them," Andariel said as though this were reassuring in any way. "And he didn't even eat them."

"But he was thinking it," Baal pointed out. Duriel lowered his head beside Lucion and started whispering something to him once more. "What are you telling him?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing," Duriel replied. He stood up and climbed out of the acid pool, leaving florescent green and yellow puddles in his wake. Despite having had a pretty good soak in it, there seemed to be few acid burns on his thick hide. "Just having a nice little chat with him."

"You were telling him to do something..." Baal said suspiciously. He picked up Lilith and then began looking around for Lucion, but realized he was missing. He glared at Duriel. "Hand him over."

"What makes you think that I have him?" Duriel shrugged.

"Then where is he, if he's not hiding behind you right now?"

"I dunno," Duriel shrugged. "It's your job to watch him, not mine."

Baal was considering beating the crap out of him right then and there when he felt sharp teeth sink deeply into one of his legs. He jumped completely off the ground and shrieked at the unexpected pain while Duriel, Andariel, and Diablo all fell over laughing at him.

He lifted his leg and found Lucion dangling off of it by his teeth. "That's not funny!" he scolded the other three.

* * *

Baal was busy soaking his wounded leg in an acid bath, leaving Diablo and Andariel to keep the toddlers occupied until he was done.

"Hey Andariel, do you want to hear a joke?" Lucion asked. "What do you call an agreeable angel?"

Andariel had certainly heard this joke from Diablo before, but she decided to play along anyway when she noticed it annoyed Baal. "I don't know. What do you call an agreeable angel?"

"A dead one!" he laughed.

"That's a great one! You should tell it to Duriel!" Andariel said before calling her brother over.

"Hey Duriel, what do you call an agreeable angel?"

"I have never heard this one before," Duriel replied with a sarcastic smile in Baal's direction. "So you should tell it to me again in five minutes to see if it's still funny!" Baal's entire body twitched at the request.

Diablo snickered and whispered, "I told them that joke this morning and now they won't stop repeating it."

"I had a feeling that's what happened," Andariel whispered back. She thought of something and then smiled. "Hey kids, do you want to hear another joke?" she asked.

The only thing louder than them shouting, "Yes!" was Baal screaming, "NOOOO!"

* * *

Baal was wary of leaving the toddlers to his brother after they'd been lost the first time, but there was so much work to be done. There was desolation and destruction to be planned! Feasts to be prepared for! Someone had to walk the hellhounds so they'd stop pissing in the lounge areas and sweep up the sloth demons so they could be put back into storage!

It was with great relief that he returned to them to find they were both still there and Diablo was watching them attentively. Lucion and Lilith were both collecting rocks in two separate piles for some reason. "What are they doing now?" Baal asked.

"You asked me to keep them occupied, so I told them to each collect 37 brown rocks," Diablo explained.

"Well I have things I need to do, so they kind of need to come with me and..."

"But Uncle Baal, we didn't collect all of the rocks yet!" Lilith protested.

"Yeah Uncle Baal, they need to collect all of the rocks!" Diablo replied sarcastically.

"There's rocks all over!" he pointed out. "They can literally just pick them up as they go!"

"But then we have to carry them, Uncle Baal," Lucion replied.

"Yeah Uncle Baal, but then they have to carry them!"

"Oh for the love of Tathamet!" Baal grumbled. He sat down on a pillar of brimstone and watched them both collect their brown rocks.

Lucion had begun to count his rocks to see if he had 37 yet. He got to 28 before Diablo asked, "Lucion, how many do you have now?"

Lucion stared at the pile of rocks, not knowing where he left off. "Uh...I have..." he stuttered. Wordlessly he pushed the ones he had counted back over to the other side of the pile and began anew. "1...2...3...4..."

While he was counting, Diablo looked to his sister and asked, "Lilith, did you get 37 yet?"

"Uh, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..." Lilith began counting her rocks.

"Lilith, you're messing me up!" Lucion said angrily when her counting once again threw him off. He pushed all his rocks back over to the count pile and started again. It was at this point that it was clear that Baal was growing more and more impatient. "1...2...3...4..."

"75...77...100..." Diablo said overtop of him. Lucion stared at his rock pile again and once more pushed them over into the recount pile.

"Okay, you both have 37 rocks! Can we go now?!" Baal said impatiently.

"But are they brown?" Diablo asked.

Lilith stared long and hard at a rock that seemed to be either a dark shade of reddish brown or black. "Uncle Diablo, is this brown?" she asked.

"Yeah, what about these?" Lucion said before shoving a handful of dubiously colored ones over.

Baal flopped onto his back over the brimstone platform and angrily kicked his legs in the air. "OH, MOTHERFU-"

* * *

When Mephisto returned to collect his children, he found them curled up and asleep in the coils of Diablo's tail. Diablo was laying across the same rock that he had been on when he'd left them both with Baal that morning. _H__is lazy ass__ probably hasn't even moved from that spot since, _he thought to himself with mild irritation. Laying sprawled across the ground next to them and looking fairly exhausted, beaten up, and with blood and a foul smelling discharge oozing from an infected puncture wound in his leg was Baal, who would later take out his frustrations of the day by leveling the largest structure he could find in Pandemonium.

"I've never seen them both asleep at the same time," Mephisto said when he saw them both. "What did you do to them?"

"Baal beat them both unconscious," Diablo replied.

Baal at once stirred and spun around to glare at him. "I did _what?"_

"With rocks. And he laughed the entire time."

Fortunately for Baal, Mephisto wasn't inclined to believe his youngest brother. Diablo loosened his tail just enough for him to pry the two sleeping toddlers out of their designated sleepy spot. "Well, I'd thank you for watching my kids, but it's your job," Mephisto said to Baal. "And you seem to have done well, so I'll be sure to force you to watch them again some other time."

"Daddy," Lilith said sleepily when the motion to pick her up disturbed her, "want to hear a joke?" Baal twitched violently while Diablo smiled and fought back a fit of giggles. "What do you call an agreeable angel?"

He couldn't hear the intended punchline over the sound of Diablo's violent laughter and Baal screaming enough profane words that even the Heavens felt a chill at that moment.

* * *

_After trying to figure out how a demon embodying the sin of sloth might be useful in any way, I have come to the sound conclusion that the role of the sloth demons in battle is probably to lay on the ground and wait until someone trips over them. Alternatively, they also make great fodder for catapults and trebuchets because they're too tired to protest and heavy enough from lack of exercise to take out walls._


End file.
